Sunday, 15 September 2013

Music Memories with Marvin

I'm sure I've mentioned this before. For some reason I get abit chuffed if I can pinpoint the exact moment when I heard a song that I love for the first time. Let me set the scene...

The flat was empty, silent.

The sun stood still in the sky and a slight breeze teased the curtains of my open window.

Just kidding. It was the Easter hols of my first year at Uni. I was sitting in my dorm at my desk studying while listening to my iPod. Now I normally listen to the same cluster of songs but for some reason I had decided to put my entire library on shuffle. This meant that during this period of study I had discovered a chunk of music that I never even realised I had.

So there I was swivelling on my chair, trying to decipher the Russian Molecular Biology that was before me and this intro plays. My brain kind of acknowledges it but i'm still focussed on learning about Moscow cell signalling... and the intro was long so it was easy to kind of ignore. But see then something catches my attention. Marvin starts singing "I want you, the right way" and my focus is split. He continues "I want you, but I want you to want me too, I want you to want me baby, just like I want you". The my brain starts screaming "What is this???!!! How have I not heard you before??!!! Where have you been all my life???!!!!" And that was it, studying be damned! Marvin's smooth tone demanded all of my attention. So I gave it.

See i'd heard some Marvin Gaye songs before. I thought I knew what he was about, thought I was down with the Soul Man. WRONG. This was the song. This was the song that triggered a Marvin discography marathon. It started here, my love for Marvin started right here. I just couldn't get over the groove. The jam. It was so smooth, and his vocals? So effortless. I played it again, and then again and then just left it on repeat because it wasn't getting out of my system. It wasn't a song that I was going to get over soon. And I didn't. And two years later I still haven't. I still can't hear it once. If it comes up during shuffle it has to be played again. And again, and then once more just because.